I swear if I hear that one more time I may explode. I’ve discovered Midwesterners do not think you are sick if your sinuses are bothering you. You could have a sinus infection but that’s just your sinus, you are not really sick. You could have a raging head cold but if it is expressed in your sinuses than you are not sick. You now have bronchitis because you have been sick for 2 or 3 weeks but it was just your sinuses so you were not really sick.
I’m originally from the Pacific Northwest and I never was such a thing. There, it is all about the fever. You feel like you swallowed a cheese grater and have white puss pockets at the back of your throat? You don’t have a fever so you are not sick. You have the chicken pox; you don’t have a fever so you are not really sick. You have ever symptom of the flu but you don’t have a fever, then you are not sick and off to school you go.
So let us say that you have been totally stuffed up for two weeks. You can’t breathe; you spend half your day sneezing your head off. Every time you take something to clear your sinuses you end up sneezing and blowing your nose until you are as stuffed up as before and you have to start all over again. Your head feels like it wants to explode from the sinus pressure and you are using a neti pot several times a day to prevent a sinus infection from developing. You are so exhausted that you go to bed at 8:00 nearly every night for two weeks, 9:30 at the latest. You normally go to bed between 10:00 and 11:00. Then one night you lie down and start to wheeze and whistle every time you exhale and your chest starts to hurt. You can’t sleep because of the difficulty breathing and the scary noises your chest makes when you breathe. You start coughing up mucus, lots of mucus. You had bronchitis once in college and you are pretty sure you have it again.

You stay home and go to work the following day and you are treated like a leper. After all, it is just your sinuses, you aren’t really sick.
This has been my life the past couple of weeks.

There is this thing that goes around Omaha every year that even the doctors call – The Crud. It is something like a cold. And something like the flu. Toss in something like a sinus infection and you get something that is a little like everything and yet none of those things. It is viral and you pretty much have to ride it out. Only it gets passed around more than a juicy piece of gossip in the tabloids. So it constantly changes. If you live alone and clean house every day and stay away from stores and clean your desk space often, you ‘may’ be less likely to get it.

This is how I’ve been spending most of my time since the end of November. So I’m a bit behind and haven’t found the time to write about anything or blog about anything or do much of anything. I have managed to read a lot. And Sleep a lot. Sleep has taken on a life of its own and deserves to have a capital S.

As in Super Sleep. The Sleep Wars. Sleep Strikes Back. Return of Sleep. Fatal Sleep. Eyes Wide Sleeping. The Sleep of the 50 Foot Woman. The Sleep. The Big Sleep. Indian Jones and the Temple of Sleep. Sleeping on Elm St. Aliens versus Sleep. American Sleep. Well, that last one could be a whole heck of a lot of movies.

I stayed home sick for the last two days and if my budget could have afforded it, I probably would have been there again today. So I maybe catching up on stuff. Or I may be sleeping some more. Hard to tell as I sit here and sniffle. But that could be the cayenne I put in my couscous and tin of chicken breast.

Brown up ground beef in a pot.
Cut half an onion in slightly thick slices, then 1/4 the stack.
Mince one garlic clove.
Peal the rest of the garlic but leave whole or cut big ones in half.
Sprinkle browning beef with Cayenne. Stir well.
When beef is nearly done, add the onions and garlic.
Sprinkle with more Cayenne. Stir well.
Cook until beef is done and veggies are softened.
Add 1 cup water and beef bullion.
Once bullion is completely dissolved, add another cup water and half a cup of small elbow pasta or other pasta.
Cook until softened.
Add more water if needed.
Add more Cayenne to taste.

I have three half-started blogs in my notebook and on my computer. But life happened. We are training a new person. One person is having to do a huge project due by Friday and is therefore of f normal duties. This effectively puts us down two people. So I jot down thoughts and notes as I can.

I tried getting up early to create more time to finish those but my Plantar Faciitis has been acting up very badly and I really lost any extra time I had. I’m coming down with or already came down with a head cold. The result is that I’m more muddle-headed in the evenings due to tiredness. I zoned out on the couch with SeaQuest last night.

I haven’t even been working on stitching projects. About the most I’ve been doing is breeding sims and trying to get more alien sims. Sims 2 rather than Sims 3. Sims 3 you can make green, red, or blue sims. You don’t have to get them abducted by aliens to make alien babies. Less of a challenge.

I rather miss the supply officer from season one of SeaQuest. He was funny. I also think the original doctor was better. The LT added the second season annoys me. If you ever watched Red Dwarf, he is who Rimmer thought he should be rather that who Rimmer actually was. And I’m not talking about Ace, who was pretty cool. No, this is who Rimmer kept trying to be and thought he was, if only ‘they’ weren’t holding him back.

The Deluise brothers were good but never really filled the void the other actors left. I think the show jumped the shark at the start of the second season with the addition of the new doctor and her ESP abilities. I’m leery of season 3 because I think I remember not liking it. What do you call jumping the shark a second time around in the same show?

Maybe one day I’ll finish the blogs of this week. Maybe I never will. I guess that is just life.

If you base it on thick, gunky mucus that is 50 shades of green, then it was definitely an infection. They say you can’t possibly get rid of infections without antibiotics, but I’m not so sure. I’ve had pretty good luck with regular irrigation via a netipot. Sure, it takes time and you have to do it, consistently, about every 4 hours. Drink plenty of tea and soup, garlic and cayenne are good tools. So is onion. But the color gets better, the mucus starts to thin some. Eventually you are back to normal.

When you compare it, antibiotic take a good 10 days, you have to take them anywhere from twice a day to every 4 to 6 hours. And then you increase your resistance to then and help create antibiotic resistant strains of various bugs and diseases. Not to mention the rather high odds for women to get ‘other’ infections because antibiotics also kill the good things in our bodies we need.

I think I’ll stick with my netipot.

This fight over who rules my sinuses has been going on since the weekend. Monday I nearly stayed home. Then I decided I would go in and see how things went. Maybe I could leave early if I was getting worse. Well, that was a bad idea. We were short two compilers in another department so the unit I’m in had to help cover for them. There was no leaving early.

Tuesday, I didn’t feel any better. I was in a good mood and decided I could get through the day. I did it Monday, after all. OMG (yes, I really typed it). I ended up leaving in a very cranky mood. It wasn’t triggered by a caller for a change, but by a co-worker.

Wednesday I felt much worse and took the day off. I slept. I got 14 hours of sleep. I also ran out of medicine last night and it was too late to bother going to the store. But good sleep has helped get rid of the sore throat, clear up part of the headache, and green has cleared up to white. My ears are still bothering me. I dislike the way my sinuses drain into the ears.

And I had ‘weird’ dreams all night. Now I normally have weird dreams. These were weird even for me. The result was that I was up early, bright eyed and bushy tailed. But that energy didn’t last long and I’m ready for a nap now. It will be a long day.

But the day is improved by the wonderful, blustery, windy, overcast sky. This morning’s weather was perfect, beautify, just what I like. I love fall and all it brings.

It brings more wind, more clouds, sometimes more rain; leaves turn colors, fall, and make great big piles to bury oneself in. It leads to naked, skeletal tree limbs, reach out, reaching up, clawing at the world and sky. The air turns crisp, and cold, and sharp, and scented with wood smoke and the hint of a future winter.

I love Fall. It is my favorite season. I feel the energy that summer steals from me starting to return. And it marks the return of my favorite holiday. Halloween. I would do Halloween all year round but no one wants to let me.

On the way to work I saw a sign for Spirit of Halloween. It is one of the two Halloween superstores that open up around September. I love these stores. Massive collections of costumes, decorations, party ware, wigs, makeup, hats, masks, the fun never ends.

We also have a local decorating store, called Nobbies that usually has a fantastic Halloween selection. At least it did until last year. That was a rather significant let down. They had their usual large display of costumes. But the actual décor was significantly reduced. I have to admit it was somewhat depressing.

Perhaps even distressing.

Yes, distressing. The spending on Halloween now rivals the spending on Christmas, but last year, thinking people would not be spending as much, the stores stocked less. Much less.

Still, this is another year. Another Dollar. Another Halloween. Another chance to find that perfect item that you can justify leaving out all year long. Another opportunity to increase my skull collection.

They say diamonds are a girl’s best friend. I think they seriously underestimate the happiness that can be found in a good skull.